June 2006

Features

• Great Beer From Around the World Meets its Food Match

  Chef Paul Kahan has been showered with the sort of adulation normally reserved for dead poets and southern football coaches. named an F&W best new chef 1999 for his work at Chicago's Blackbird, Kahan has been described as a genius more times than is healthy for anyone who's still alive. indeed, at this point in his career, people would probably make reservations to watch him butter toast.

• Interview with Best New Chef Christopher Lee

• Interview with Best New Chef David Chang

• Interview with Best New Chef Douglas Keane

• Interview with Best New Chef Mary Dumont

• Interview with Best New Chef Pino Maffeo

• Interview with Best New Chef Stewart Woodman

• Jean-Georges's Best Small Plates

  Mushroom spring rolls and more great ideas from Jean-Georges Vongerichten's soon-to-expand Spice Market

• Do Recipes Make You a Better Cook?

  Good cooks rely on recipes, but only to a point. Chef Daniel Patterson examines the pitfalls of written directions and urges a return to a riskier—and ultimately more rewarding—approach.

• A Crush on Châteauneuf-du-Pape

  World-famous wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr., explains why these Rhône wines so captivate him and names 20 producers he reveres.

• Avroko

  This New York City design team can make anything from an old library card catalog to a Formica counter seem modern and sexy. Here, as they prepare for the opening of their latest Manhattan restaurant project, Quality Meats, they discuss what inspires them.

• Best New Wine Lists 2006

  The 10 winners of F&W's eighth annual Best New Wine Lists award offer outstanding wines from far and wide, even from the tiniest and most remote vineyards (think India, Turkey—and Ohio). The lists, all from restaurants that have opened within the past year or so, generally assume that customers are willing to spend a bit more on wines than they have in the past. Still, each features at least some sensational bargains, as well as a wide range of brilliant food matches.

• What Chefs Know Best 2006

  F&W polled 100 chefs from New York to Portland, Oregon, on everything from their favorite pans to cooking with sodium alginate. Here's what they told us.

• Where to Go Next: Aspen

  Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson of Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, Colorado, an F&W Best New Chef 2005, often travels over the mountains to Aspen, where he has some favorite spots. For more great restaurants, check out our guide to the best places to eat in the country.

• Where to Go Next: Hamptons

  Marc Murphy, chef at Manhattan's Landmarc and its forthcoming Time Warner Center incarnation, has a house on Long Island's East End. Here's where he likes to eat.

• The Food Avant-Garde's Enabler

  Gadget-obsessed inventor Dave Arnold may be just the kind of helper experimental cooks need.

• The New Italy

• Miami's Hottest Latin Party

  Chef Michelle Bernstein is becoming a superstar with fantastic recipes that honor her Latin heritage. She shows off her style both at her new restaurant, Michy's, and at a floating party with friends on Biscayne Bay, featuring tangy seviche and grilled meats with chimichurri.